As bad as you may think the article is, it’s exactly what is happening. It’s all about money today. It doesn’t matter if there is a historic place there. Same with the bowling alley. They can get more money with something else in it’s place. It’s not going to change.

The quarter moon you are seeing is actually a reflection from the subwoofer driver. I should have painted it when I replaced the screen last year. As far as the picture not being centered, they probably didn’t adjust the masking right. All the aspect ratios for all 4 screens are correct. We are one of the few theaters around that actually have the proper lenses and plates for all 4 aspect ratios.

The first couple weeks I thought attendance was up but now it has dropped off. Most of the optional shows have been cancelled already. I suspect the remaining ones will be also. Also, from what I have heard, they are looking to start the shows next year later into the season.

The economy does not seem to be affecting ticket sales. I am surprised at how crowded it has been so far. Much better than I expected. BTW, the 3-D film looks better than ever. Judging by the reaction from the audience, which we can here in the booth, they agree.

Bob, the shutter gear actually was replaced. It was also replaced 2 years ago when it stripped during a show. Someone else replaced it then. It was a rubber gear. They installed a fiber gear. When I rebuilt the projector last week, I replaced it with a fiber gear again. I also had to replace some other gears that stripped. That led to changing bearings, the oil pump, and a few other things (while I was in there). As far as running film more, that probably will not happen. Although the exhaust is now much better, they have dedicated projectors 2 and 3 to the Christmas show. They do not want to use them for any kind of film shows.

Well all the work is finally done in the booth. Projector 3 has been rebuilt after stripping gears on the last show of last year. The new motion controller has been installed and FINALLY programmed 100%. We have increased the airflow from the lamphouse exhaust by more than 300%. We have also improved the water flow through the traps. After realigning both lamphouses 3 times, we have improved the light output, although not as much as I was hoping. The final thing we did was steady the picture from one of the machines that was giving us trouble last year. The new 3-D film has arrived. Nothing other than sponsors had changed on the print. Content remained unchanged from last year. After viewing it, we are happy with the repairs that were done. The picture from both machines were rock solid, bright and focus was sharp. Too bad we don’t have an entire 70MM print to run.

Yes, the 2008 Christmas show is here already. From what I have been told, there will not be many changes from last year’s show. We will be in next week to start loading everything in. It sounds like projection will remain the same also. We need to do some repairs in the booth as one of our 70MM projectors had a meltdown on the last day of the show last year. Not to mention the 3D interlock system which literally had a meltdown also. Oh well. It should be a fun week.

Suspiciously defensive? LMAO. I just find it funny that people blame “theater policy” on their own lateness. I was only telling you to give it another try because it is a good theater to see a movie at. I’m not worries about everyone loving the theater. Enough people do. I just find your reasoning lame, that’s all.

I personally could care less if you came to this theater or not. Just don’t make it seem like it’s the theaters fault because you could not get there on time. The policies are here for a reason. People don’t like being interuppted by customers coming in 20 minutes after the movie starts looking for a seat.

First off, Tom from dolby did a great job with the sound. The main issue they were having was that left and right channels seemed to overpower the dialouge at times. After all their tinkering, they ended up at the original levels.As far as 35MM filling the screen goes, I must totally disagree. With a 75MM lens in the machine, we filled the screen fine. It was the same picture size for 35MM and digital. Like I said, the light level was about 8fl with the 5k lamp. That reading was from the booth so I know it was a bit more from down there. Light readings from the booth with one digital projector with a 6k lamp was about 7fl so we did pretty well with the 35MM. I don’t know why at least the 3rd mezz was not opened for seating.

I agree Vito. Unfortunately, when the new equipment was put in around 1999, it was mainly installed for the 70MM 3D. The 7K lamps would have definitely looked good. The main problem is the fact that they neglected to improve the exhaust. Since then, the exhaust system there has gotten worse. Getting management to fix these problems is difficult to say the least. The main reason it took so long for the tech run, besides setting up all the digital equipment, is because they had audio issues during the tech. They could not agree on left and right levels. In the end, they went back to the original seetings that the Dolby tech set. We did switch back and forth from digital to film during the tech many times. While the digital was brighter, remember that it took 2 machine with 12k output to get it that bright. Yes the digital was in the first mezz. As Peter eluded to, the movie was not good. There were some laughs but not an overwhelming response. Long live film.

Hey Vito. The “Sex” screening was shown in Digital. There were 2 Christie projectors converged. We also had a 35MM back up running a minute behind. The tech run in the morning took over 7 hours to complete. Light readings were not great with one digital projector We were getting 7FL with one 6K lamp. With the 2 converged, we got around 12. The 35mm readings werent too bad considering we had a 5K lamp with a few hours on it. We got a bit over 8FL. The screening ran fine. We never had to switch over to film (too bad). They filled the orchestra. All the mezzanines were kept closed.